


The Blink of an Eye

by mainecoon76



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Battle of Five Armies, BotFA, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, History of Middle Earth, Istari - Freeform, Reflections on Mortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 23:19:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3307013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mainecoon76/pseuds/mainecoon76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gandalf reflects on Thorin's death.</p>
<p>Missing scene from <i>The Battle of the Five Armies</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Blink of an Eye

**Author's Note:**

> Here's one of several things I would have loved to see in BotFA - something, _anything_ , that showed how Gandalf was coping with Thorin's death and the fact that he himself set those events in motion. Posted before on tumblr, unbetaed.

They call me the Grey Pilgrim. I wander the paths of Middle Earth, they say, ever on the road but never to settle, watching and protecting the land and its people so that no evil may befall them. 

At times like this, I wonder. 

They are so fragile, the lives of the mortal races, bright flames in the darkness that last mere moments before they flicker and fail. Twenty years or two hundred, but it makes no difference to one who is immortal, as the Woodland King claims in his disdain for all lives that come to an early end. It matters not, he says, how many perish for the greater good, as their time is no more than the blink of an eye in the history of Arda. 

Thorin Oakenshield is dead. 

His dwarven friends are gathered around his body, all except Fíli and Kíli who lie cold in the snow, and Dwalin who stares at the battlefield with unseeing eyes and a mind that is screaming without a sound. Bilbo Baggins sits beside me, frozen like the river below our feet, unable or unwilling to join his companions. Thorin died bravely, they say. He killed the leader of an army that set out to bring doom to Middle Earth, and his sacrifice may have helped to change the history of our world, to secure a victory that will bring us peace for another few years, or decades, or centuries. What is the life of one dwarf against the fate of hundreds? The lives of three, even; pawns to be offered on the eternal board, so that their loss may protect the movements of more valuable figures. 

I have played for thousands of years, and never have I been so tired of it. 

We must protect the land, my associates of the White Council tell me. We have to think on a grander scale. We should not get involved in the lives of mortals, lest it may cloud our judgment and weaken our resolve. 

Thus I must bear the death of two young lads, mourn them but accept their fate, even though it was I who turned their feet onto this path. I must watch the nameless grief of friends, a broken warrior who is beyond salvation, a hobbit who will never laugh the way he used to, and now, too late, I wish I had never gambled with his innocence. I will always remember the companion I abandoned when he needed me most, and now I will never hear his voice again. 

I must play my part, and play it I will though none can shield me from the guilt and the pain, because they mattered and I could not spare them. They were not the first, nor will they be the last. The game will go on and on, and I will suffer it as long as I must. 

He was a bright light, this thick-headed fool of a dwarf, one of the brightest I have ever met, burning fiercely in the darkness that was his dreary life in exile. He inspired friend and foe, drove them to great deeds of love and vicious acts of hatred. He never followed my moves without question; he was not made to be a pawn. He was stubborn and difficult, and he was very dearly loved. 

I wish I could have called him my friend.


End file.
